Africa Plus

Welcome to our Journey!

This journey is largely the result of Bon's passion for travel. Without her enthusiasm, mind for detail, cheerleading, and all around travel competance I can safely say this new journey would not have materialized.

Why Africa? We ended our Circle Trip and immediately Bonnie was into planning another adventure but one with a difference. We had travelled a year and covered a lot of distance but along the way our transport, accomodations, food, most every aspect of the journey was a "tourist" experience. That is, although we attempted the off the beaten track the areas we covered were largely made "explorer friendly".

Since we'd been there and done that..."How about Africa by bicycle?", she says with a grin! My immediate response was NO! Bon is persistant, no matter what else people say, she will not let go of an idea until it is thoroughly pummelled to death if it's got any validity at all. So here we are and altho the bikes have been tossed aside(logistics, cost, numerous other negatives), this trip takes off Sept. 27 from Spokane, WA.

Our first destination Florida with Bon, Tim, Mari, Tiffany(daughter), Todd(son) is a visit to our travel mentor Aunt Carol Williams who at 93, lives by the motto Use It or Lose It and Use What You've Got To the Best of Your Ability! The second she never said but it's definately the way Aunt Carol lives her life.

Next, Tiff and Todd return to MT and Bon, Mari, & Tim fly to Malaga, Spain(Bon found this to be the cheapest way to begin in Africa-plus we get to visit Spain, ha!). Across to Morocco and to Casablanca to meet up w/ Jake and then on S. in West Africa until we reach Cameroon from whence we fly to Addis Ababa and meet up with Todd in early Feb. Somewhere along the way we hope to meet up with friend Kiwi Kim and her friend to join us for ???long? Heading S. again thru East African countries to S. Africa itself-planning on a month there.July 1 we fly N. to Isambul and then head E. thru the stans to Nova Sibersk, Russia where we hope to view the total eclipse on Aug. 1, 2008. Then S. to ???? Pakistan, Kashmir, India??? A long time/distance off.

We travel light...small backpack and daypack, to expidite our journey and not be too conspicuous. We travel on a budget: +/- $600/mo. excluding air fares, malaria pills, & vaccines. Our intent is to go as the locals travel and see/experience as much as we can via osmosis. This is not easy being very obviously still "tourists" to the locals but we try! We do not have any special language abilities(no French or local lingo) but always an attempt to learn the basics of the local tongue...please, thank you, bathroom, excuse me, how much, where is, etc. A lot of pointing, gestures, and respect for the people and land thru which we travel...visitors and to them, mostly wealthy in their eyes!

Come aboard! Join us in any way you can. We hope our adventures bring some sense of where we are and what is happening there. We all are in search of the soul, the being here in each of us. Trying to connect ourselves with the whole of life, we find some peace. In the midst of a seemingly chaotic day to day we find moments of joy, beauty, poetry...the music of our short heartbeat on this our Earthship!

Above all else, we do make a difference no matter who we are or where we are.

On Dec. 1, 2010 our friend, Don Phelan, died of lung cancer. He joined us on our trip on May 16, 2008 and was a great addition. He was an ex-AYH leader & leadership course advisor who loved travel and seeing/learning about the world and people in it. We will miss him alot.Also, see our journal entries for Cancun, SouthoftheBorder trip, where we visited Don at his place on Isla Mujeres...a generous host and friend!